The Feint
by Caprica Janeway
Summary: A little backstory for the character Emma Rios told over five different time periods. Written as part of the Halfamoon Female Characters In Fandom Challenge (Day 1 Prompt: Origins and Beginnings). It can be viewed as a prequel to 'How do I solve a problem like Rios'.


No one kicks like Rios.

She rarely passes the ball; she's too busy dancing with it - teasing it, making it flicker from one end of her foot to the other.

She could hear the crowd; small voices peeking through the many shrieks of parents and fellow students. She knew they were impatient just like her coach was.

Her father had called her a showboat, and maybe she was, but she knew herself, and he wasn't here anymore.

At her age, playing to the crowd was a way of playing to herself. Without kicking the ball she had met her goal - the ball, like the crowd of eyes around her never left her side.

She'd seen it before in practice, the way they would tilt their heads at her maneuvers. The ball was her yo-yo, and her feet would pull it into line. They watched her bending it, bouncing it, positioning it and poking it – they'd frequently tilt their heads looking for an invisible string.

So as she came within a few feet of the goal the wave of shrieks dimmed to single shouts of enthusiasm.

They waited.

They watched her tease the ball, waiting for the final strike. The little girl with the long brown hair, the one who licked her lips before any attack bit her lip this time.

She didn't strike the ball, she tapped it to her right and watched as the smallest member of her team swooped in and ran with it through the defense kicking it swiftly past the goalie.

They shared a smile and ran towards each other in an unabashed embrace.

Emma held her friend as tightly as she could. She couldn't let go, she wouldn't forget – this is who she was.

She was ten years old.

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Her hands were always raised - not with an answer, but a question.

She's told to read her notes, to memorise and parrot back. She's told to think, but to only respond when she can back what she says.

She likes history.

Explorers like Marco Polo and Lewis and Clark make her daydream and feed her curiosity.

She sees science as a way of understanding nature, and stories like Oliver Twist and Goodnight Mister Tom as a way of understanding people.

In her impatience she often wants to know without thinking. The fear of missing the answer often prompts her to ask while her teachers are explaining. She wants to kick first and assess later. It makes her slower to take notes, but quicker to pick up concepts.

Her teachers are patient because they can see that she's trying. They want to see her bounce from question to answer, to play with theories and form her own conclusions.

Her classmates know her as the talkative one - the bossy boots, the know-it-all, but when they ask for her help, she doesn't speak. She nods to the stack of books she's already finished. She found her answers, and so could they.

There was nothing left to prove.

She was twelve years old.

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There's a hole in her wall, perfectly suited to a size five boot.

She not one to kick without aim, but the pain is too raw, and the wall isn't the kid who hit her little brother. Her mother now sits beside her as they watch the cracks in the drywall. The cracks are small and uneven, they crumble into the hole and there's not much left to say.

Her mother takes her hand in her own, turning it so her fingers curve upwards and gently she moves it along the hollow space. She follows the direction her mother takes and allows her fingers to loosen so they trail along the crumbs of wall in front of her. The lazy tapping of her fingertips only help loosen the fragments. She watches them fall like snowflakes.

"You always use your feet. It's your hands that gotta clean up the mess."

Her mother reaches to the side with her free hand and picks up a dustpan and brush. She puts it in her daughter's hand and gently curls Emma's fingers around the handle.

She was sixteen years old.

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He didn't give her any warning - gone for ten years, back for ten minutes.

She didn't want to speak to him; he was a storyteller. She watched as he entertained her brother with his tales of snorkeling off the Great Barrier Reef and exploring the volcanic hillsides of Bali.

His eyes wandered though, they looked ever so quickly to the side, looking for her but never quite making contact. She wasn't ready to falter. She may not want to speak to the man, but she was quite content to bore a hole in his head with her unwavering glare.

"Emma," he said her name without looking at her. It was enough of a cue for her mother to step in and usher her brother away.

He still didn't look at her. Instead he opened his jacket and removed a thick envelope and placed it on the table.

"Your move kid," he said finally turning in her direction.

Her curiosity won over her need to glare him into a pillar of salt, and he was only making it harder for her now that he returned her stare – if a little softer and more curious than her own. She turned over the envelope and noticed a few words written to the side:

_'For when you give up the kick'_

She sighed at the words and ripped open the envelope. Cash; fifties, hundreds tied up neatly with rubber bands. She took her time - saying nothing as she counted it and left the table.

"Where are you going?" He asked.

She returned without replying and showed him the fresh brown envelope she brought with her. Silently and carefully, she packed the envelope with the bundles of cash. She ripped off the plastic sticker and firmly sealed the envelope before passing it back to him.

"This is for you; don't give it back to me. It's to help you with college, or set up a home of your own,"

"Give it to my brother," she finally replied.

"You're my daughter, he's not my son - it's meant for you."

"You want to be a father don't you? Well he needs a father, and I'm offering a solution. You think I need this?" She asked tapping her finger on the envelope.

"...no thanks to you I earned a full scholarship - without the ball at my feet. I don't need your contrition cash, but he does. Maybe you can make up the time you lost with me on him. Wake up and recognise a good deal when it's offered to you."

"I don't need to be his father, I'm just trying to make things right,"

"So take the deal. His father - my father died six months ago. If you're going to stick around then try and make amends by being there for him. The truth is I don't need you."

He picked up the package and smoothed the envelope beneath his fingers. He looked up at his daughter and smiled to himself.

"Still kicking then, hey Em?"

She pulled her right foot behind her left and pointed her toes towards her heel. She didn't need to look at him, she saw him move to the lounge room. She heard her mother accept the package, and a few minutes later just as she suspected, she heard his footsteps as he walked out the front door.

She was nineteen years old.

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The goal is simple – forget today, so you can vanquish tomorrow.

She was no longer in her playing field. Her move to Los Angeles had brought her under the domain of Helena Richards, the Hard-Hearted Helena of the District Attorney's office.

She had come to her earlier that day clothed in the sharpest, tailored pantsuit Emma had ever seen. Her confidence, forged by her own intellect, had allowed her to blaze through the fires of a predominately male workforce - mimicking the flames rather than extinguishing them. You learnt quickly that if you didn't engage with her in the same brand of rapid fire, than you quickly became consumed by it.

So after a day in the inferno Emma now sat at Ryan's bar picking the flecks of ash from her highly treasured Vera Wang jacket.

While she pondered the day's events, the TV above the bar buzzed with the sounds of a roaring crowd and a game between Italy and Uruguay began. Football, or Soccer as they would call it here wasn't exactly the most prized game, and it wasn't long until the grunts from her fellow bar flies caused the barman to make the move to change the channel.

"Don't," she said offering her most deflated smile.

The barman took pity on her and let the match play.

"Funny, I always took you as more of a baseball fan,"

Emma's body twisted into a ridged cage of wires. Her breath became hitched, barely maneuvering between the constricted spaces.

_That woman_, she breathed out rather than spoke.

She didn't bother turning around. Part of her was trying to rein in her fear, and the other part was angry – furious that the cause of her anxiety for the last few days had chosen her refuge to visit.

Helena took the stool next to Emma and ordered a beer. Emma found her anger momentarily halted as she considered the strange beverage choice for a woman of her income bracket.

"So Rios, is this your game of choice? Or do you just pretend to like it so you have something to talk about with the men at this dive bar?"

And there it was – curiosity giving way to something more common.

It starts in the belly as it always does. It fills quickly, the rush of heat – like hot, scalding water filling a bathtub, she felt the rise to anger so quickly that only her fear of this emotion could catch its coattails. Anger always had a way of loosening the bones, forcing them to react to its trigger with a sense of immediacy, that is - until fear catches up.

It had hit her probably with more force than her anger – the fear of losing control and being made the fool, and she felt her body tighten again.

She put her glass down in one swift motion, holding it firm to the coaster.

_Don__'__t strike,_ she heard herself say. _Just don__'__t._

She didn't listen.

"Do you always plow your way through a field on the offense, or is this simply a desperate attempt at asserting your dominance?"

It was out now; she could loosen the grip on her glass as the fear gave way to acceptance. Emma let her hand slide her drink off the coaster towards the barman who was quick to refill it.

"I get results."

"Excuse me?" Emma replied, not sure she had even heard the retort.

"You're agitated, you've lost focus. I guess you could say you've lost sight of the ball here."

Emma smiled at the barman as she took the drink he passed to her. Acceptance had a kind of humour to it that she felt she could work with. The defeat was another shot she had to learn. She took a generous drink and placed the glass back on the bar.

"I may be a bitch, but it works for me - I get results. Your problem Rios is you don't know what card to play. You barge through doors trying to be a poor imitation of me, and then you slink back to defense just as quickly. If you were a real team player you'd learn your place, and work with the rest of us, instead of continually pushing back."

"I used to play that game," Emma replied pointing her glass at the TV.

"Used to?" she asked, less curious and more disbelieving.

"I never questioned a kick. Everything was about the angles and the opportunity. You separate the defense, make them spread out – make them guess your approach. They do the work for you, because in the end it always comes down to one angle, one kick, and instead of choosing one, they choose all - and all is nothing."

Acceptance passed to something else, and the game they both found themselves staring at had changed pace. A player was pulled aside; the referee blew his whistle, the crowd booed, and then just as quickly the game played on.

"You're going to have to find a new supervisor." Helena finally replied.

"Quitting me already?"

"Something like that. So in the spirit of quitting, tell me – why did you give up the sport?"

"I got tired of kicking."

Helena raised an eyebrow and rolled her eyes as she passed the barman some cash, fetching her keys from her handbag.

"You should reconsider," Helena replied, slipping off the bar stool in one swift motion.

"...this place needs a good kicker. Someone's got to keep the assholes honest."

Emma watched the enigma that was Helena Richards leave the bar. She had done the unexpected, the unpredictable – she'd actually offered advice worth taking. It was not offered the way she would want to hear it, but nevertheless it was given.

She watched the game and thought about all those other games she'd played before. The victories and the defeats, but she couldn't remember the scores that defined those moments. All she could think of was her feet - the way they crushed the grass beneath her; the lift, the aim and ultimately the release.

She was thirty years old.


End file.
